Читать книгу At the Sign of the Fox. A Romance онлайн

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“Yes,” Lucy chattered on, “let us go upstairs; we had better drop our wraps, as we expect to make an afternoon of it. What an apartment! Madame’s, of course. Look at that bed on the dais and a boudoir and breakfast room beyond! Eight maids! Why didn’t she have four and twenty to match the pie blackbirds? Look at the way in which their skirts stay in place behind when they wiggle them. Never saw such a thing off the stage; one straight line from belt to hem, just the stunning way Hilda Spong wears hers in ‘Lady Huntworth’s Experiment’! What is the exhibit in that room across the hall, with the walls draped with white over sky-blue? Everybody is going that way; let us also flock!

“As I live, it’s the baby lying in state—no, holding a levée, I mean. What an odd-shaped cradle! Isn’t he a fright, but look at his robe—Irish point all made in one piece—and his gold toilet things on that tray! Well, after all, there must be something novel to the Parkses about this. Papa has been married three times and mamma twice, and this Chinese Joss is all there is to show for it! I wonder if her craze for collecting bric-a-brac can possibly account for his looks? If there isn’t the Senator himself, hovering around to show off his little son. I wonder if Madame knows papa is on the premises? Gracious, he’s taking the baby out of the Easter egg! Hear the lace tear, and that monumental English head nurse doesn’t move a muscle!